Imagining a World Beyond Consumerism

in the early 21st Century, the Consumer Story is collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions, and the Citizen Story is emerging. People are dissatisfied with being mere Consumers, yearn for deeper agency even though we lack the words to express it, and have an innate if imprecise sense that authentic participation holds the key to a brigh

Even among people who work within the ‘creative industries’, their imagination seems increasingly harnessed to create demand for things nobody really needs, whose production is increasingly pushing our human and ecological systems to the brink of collapse – almost as if imagination has been coopted in the service of our own extinction.

If we are to break the dominance of the Consumer Story as a society, we will need to do it methodically, down to the last mundane detail; there is no use pretending that this work is all creativity and invention. It is not. Especially in these times, it requires major effort from all of us, because every time we do things today the way we did them

In a world of atomization and disconnection, where the Age of Average surrounds us and dampens our spirit, we believe this approach is how we reverse the tides. We can choose the path of  less, but better.  We can reject the incentives nudging us to behave more like machines and factories. We can reclaim our humanity, approach our work as